Vox sports an amusing feature called the QotD. Today’s was interesting enough that I’ve decided to cross-post my answer here, because not all of my loyal readership is likely to go over there and read the corresponding entry…
How many places have you lived in your life?
You’re kidding, right? Let’s see if I can remember them all:
- Ketchikan, AK (first three months of my life).
- New York City, NY (two apartments over the course of six years).
- Portland, OR (stayed with grandparents for a while).
- Vancouver, WA (two apartments over the course of about a year).
- Brewster, WA (grandparents’ place again… same grandparents, that is… then about five different house-like places in and around town over the course of one-and-a-half of Mom’s subsequent marriages).
- Bridgeport, WA (along the Bridgeport Bar, actually).
- Soap Lake, WA (during the stretch when Mom dumped us off for a few months with an elderly couple we knew from church).
- Back to Brewster, WA (just one place, still along the Bar, but going to school in Brewster instead of Bridgeport).
- Salem, OR (staying with aunt & her girlfriends, then two different apartments once Mom got out of rehab, for a total of three homes… within just three months).
- Back to Brewster, WA (yet again, and back to the same place as before, so maybe that doesn’t count).
- Hillsboro, OR (with a brief layover at some guy’s house, for a total of two places, one of which is mere blocks from where I now work!).
- Kent, WA (an apartment w/ the aforementioned guy, now stepdad #3).
- Bellevue, WA (one house, amen).
- Des Moines, WA (on a boat, no less, for part of the summer).
- Anacortes, WA (same boat, new location, for the remains of the summer).
- Concrete, WA (first living in tents at a campground site up in the hills, then crammed into a tiny hotel room, then finally in our house!).
- Back to Portland, OR (two apartments in the same building with my father, then living with my wife and her family in their house, then rooming with a friend in a house off of NE 82nd, then back to the wife’s family in a different house, then rooming with another friend in a house off SE Foster, then an apartment along SE Powell, then the house near SE Holgate where I lived in one place longer than anywhere else in my entire life, and… finally, my current residence near NE Broadway).
So, what does that all add up to? Thirty-seven “homes” in thirty-four years? That sounds about right. It probably wouldn’t surprise you to learn that I hate moving…
Comments
10 responses to “Thirty-Seven in Thirty-Four”
That beats my 29 in 34…
yeah…then think of his little sister, who has made most of those moves then some, and I’m only 29 (from New York on)
[…] My Number One Internet Fanboy posted a Vox QotD about how many places you’ve lived. Wow. Scary thought, let’s see if I can remember them all… I’ve lived in so many places that I used to joke that my mother is hiding the gypsy heritage from me! […]
I got 37, as well. *sigh*
So, let’s see: Sis missed out on Ketchikan and the first Bronx apartment, and only lived in three (or four?) places in (and around) Portland, but gains “points” for all the moving around she did with Mom after she left Stepdad #3 (so, the Trailer Of Dampness, various other rat-traps around Concrete, then up to Alaska before coming to Portland) and later joined the Navy (which added a few locations to the list, before and after the marriage).
Damn. She has me beat by easily half a dozen. Wow.
Actually, bro, I think it was closer to a full dozen, not including boot camp or the ships. 2 places in concrete, then down to portland for 3 places (not including the week at Erin’s when I was without housing), then up to Alaska for 3/4 places, back to Portland for 3 places, off to bootcamp, ‘A’ school barracks, base housing, apartment in New York and the house here in VA. That puts me at almost 50. Scary huh?
Which all trump my paltry 5 in 30, and 2 of those are from this year. Meh. I must suck or something.
Having moved an average of once every year-and-a-half growing up as a Navy brat, trust me, I don’t like moving, either. I’ve never gotten used to it, even after doing it at least 14 times in 28 years (I actually haven’t moved in 4 years; I’m 32 now).
Too many! I haven’t lived in nearly that many locations.
[…] noted before that we moved quite often when I was a youngster. Every few months it was a new set of teachers, […]